Raccoon Removal Challenges

If there were a raccoon consistently raiding your garbage cans and you wanted to trap it, we’d bet that it would be pretty easy to catch.

All you’d have to do is get a live trap and put some good bait in it. Success is almost guaranteed.

Admittedly, there isn’t that much difficulty in a scenario like this and we’re not going to tell you you need a pro to catch that raccoon.

But, as you can imagine, that type of easy raccoon trapping scenario is not what we are usually called to do: our raccoon removal jobs are often a little more involved.

Today, we are going to point out a couple the biggest challenges we encounter in raccoon removal.

Raccoons in High Spots
Trap Shy Raccoons

Heights | Roof Raccoons

Raccoons in the wild often den in tree hollows. They are good climbers and like protected spots.

In our homes, this translates into climbing on our homes’ roofs and finding weaknesses which allow them into our soffits, attics, etc.

Raccoons on the roof can be trapped on the ground where they climb up and that is a good spot for a DIYer to try.

But, for effective racoon removal, they must often be trapped at the entrances/exits to the structure.

That means getting on the roof and working in high spots. For raccoons in high spots, we would recommend a professional.

Unless you have the proper equipment and methodology, being on ladders and roofs is dangerous. Most people just don’t have the need to go on roofs regularly. That means it is better for most people to have someone else do it.

For example, here is a video Ryan made of a raccoon that found a hole in the roof in a very inconvenient spot.

As you can see, just getting to the trapping spot is not fun. Even with the proper equipment and experience, this raccoon removal has a level of risk.

This a great example of a raccoon removal scenario when the benefit to the client outweighs the cost on many levels.

Trap Avoiding Raccoons

Another case for hiring a professional is when you encounter a particularly stubborn raccoon.

There are raccoons out there that are difficult to catch in the standard ways because they ignore baited live traps.

These “trap shy” raccoons have learned to associate the standard baited trap with danger. Maybe they were trapped before or maybe they don’t need the food; who can really say?

Yet, we encounter raccoons that avoid our traps that are easily placed and set-up.

When we encounter these smart raccoons, we have to change methods.

We make sets that are more specific to their travel paths and don’t require bait. It is more work for us, but we have the experience and tools to catch the trap avoiding raccoons.

Take a look at what Ryan calls his “10 Day Raccoon”:

Once the easy way wasn’t working, Ryan changed things up and eventually caught the raccoon.

The point here is that even for someone who catches hundreds of raccoons each year, there are times of frustration when extra patience and innovation are called for.

Those are good times to hire a pro.